Golden Rivals, Silver Friends
by RyukoVulpix
Summary: Shigeru remembers being best friends with Satoshi, but by the time their Pokémon journeys started their friendship had ended. What happened to drive them apart? Why did Shigeru forget what happened?... and does he really want to remember?
1. My Journey Starts

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter One:**

**My Journey Starts**

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"Well, I guess this is goodbye."

Hazuki nodded. "Yeah. Hope I get to see you around sometime, Shigeru." He smiled. "I'll be waiting to hear about the discoveries of the new Ookido Hakase, now." I laughed.

"Might be a while before that happens. Besides, I have to get home first."

"Yeah... and I'd better start walking if I want to reach Houen anytime soon." Hazuki glanced at the sun, then turned back to me and gave me a thumbs-up. "If you hurry, you might be able to reach the Mount Silver Pokémon Center before nightfall. Hard to believe we hiked all around the mountain..." He smiled. "Do your best! And say hi to Satoshi when you get back to Masara," he said before slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

"Will do," I replied.

"It's kind of weird, you know," Hazuki remarked. "I mean, that you two ended up being rivals... I mean, like _that._ I'd have thought you'd end up great friends, maybe even traveling together, what with the kind of history you've got."

"Eh, it's a long story," I said, smiling. "Hope you have a safe trip home."

"Well, see you around sometime."

"Same to you." And that was that. In the new morning light, we both set off on our journeys home.

But how was I to know that this journey would take me back through my life...?

How could I have known that this journey would change me for the rest of my life?

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It started off as one of those things that just sit in the back of your mind and lie dormant for a while. But over time, you get the feeling that something's really bugging you.

At first, it was the silence. After walking around for a while with Hazuki and all of our Pokémon, the silence of being alone was deafening.

'_Alone...'_

Of course, I tried to shake it off... but that little itch in the back of my head kept growing. I looked around, not really sure what was bothering me.

The forest was immense. I shouldn't have said it was _silent;_ there was a good number of Pokémon around, all of them carrying on in their own different languages.

That made me smile. Once I got back to Masara Town, I'd be able to properly focus on what I wanted to do... be a Pokémon researcher like Grandpa.

Not that these past four years or so were a waste. True, being a researcher and a trainer are two completely different careers, but they do have a lot in common. With my trainer's experience and my researcher's instinct, I'd probably be the best anywhere. Although, after watching Satoshi battle with his Pokémon, I'd say that I'd rather leave the training up to him--

It hit me.

That was it.

_Satoshi._

That irritating little itch in the back of my mind...

But why?

'_Hazuki mentioned Satoshi...'_

But why _now?_ Why was it bugging me so much _now?_

Realizing that I had stopped in my tracks, I started walking again, trying to push the thought out of my mind.

Sure, it had been great to see Satoshi again at the competition. Well... as great as it could get, under the circumstances.

Most of the time, I didn't even think about him. I was ahead of him, _way_ ahead of him, and we both knew it.

Well... until our tournament match, I guess.

Then again... maybe it wasn't completely truthful to say I _never_ thought about him. He had a habit of entering my mind every now and then...

... but something always kept pushing him away...

And at that moment, I began to wonder _why._

Hazuki was right. How did Satoshi and I end up as bitter rivals instead of the best of friends? I mean, we were almost the same age, came from the same town, virtually lived down the street from each other...

I shook my head, then glanced at the sky. The sun was nearly overhead, so I figured now was as good a time as any for some lunch. After releasing my Pokémon and feeding them, there was some time left to just sit around and relax for a while.

This forest was terrific. It was full of wild Pokémon of all shapes and sizes. Sitting down and leaning against a tree, I had to smile as I watched a couple of Aipom play above me, reminding me of how Satoshi and I used to play out behind Grandpa's lab--

"_Gah!"_

I shot up. My Pokémon all turned their heads toward me.

Umbreon, who Grandpa had sent me for my journey home, walked up to me. Absentmindedly, I started scratching it behind the ears.

"What do you think?" I asked it. "What do you think about Satoshi?" Umbreon looked up at me, then let out what sounded like a laugh.

"Oh, come on," I said, giving it a gentle shove. "Just because you beat him once doesn't mean he _still_ stinks at training Pokémon. I mean, he actually beat me in the tournament..." Umbreon gave me another look that obviously said, _'If you'd have let me battle, you wouldn't have lost...'_

I rolled my eyes and smiled. "Whatever..."

My thoughts turned inward again. But the shade of the trees and the soft sounds of the forest soon cast their spell on me, and I found my eyes slowly closing...

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_Where was I?_

_Without knowing where I was going or where in the world I was, my feet propelled me forward. Even though I could tell it was the daytime, something was clouding my mind, keeping me from knowing where I was..._

_But as I was walking along, I saw someone. It was a little kid, maybe about seven or eight years old. A little kid with messy, black hair, wearing a yellow shirt with a red stripe running down the side. Strangely enough, even though he was so young, he was only a little bit shorter than me._

_Just then, the kid turned around, and I immediately recognized him..._

"_Shigeru!" he called out to me._

'_Satoshi?' I thought. Why was he little again?_

_Why was I little again?_

_What was going on...?_

_From there, it was as if I was watching a movie..._

_To my shock, I didn't smile back at Satoshi. I didn't step forward._

_I opened my mouth and said..._

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'_Let's go home! Now!'_

I woke up in a cold sweat, jolting myself awake with that mental shout.

But even so...

Something bad had happened that day. I knew it.

And somehow, as if by instinct, that memory was pushed from my mind...

I glanced at the sky. The sun was still high in the sky, but it was definitely falling westward...

I quickly recalled my Pokémon, because I could probably get a few more miles down before the sun set if I hurried. I packed up all of my supplies and started down the road, feeling a little bit hurried.

But I couldn't get it out of my mind.

What was I trying to forget?

What happened that day, out in the field?

With the sun at my back, I headed east.

Back home...

_... back to Satoshi..._

As soon as his name entered my mind, I stopped walking.

I swallowed, and concentrated.

I had to know.

_I had to find out what had happened that day..._

_... that destroyed my friendship with Satoshi._


	2. The Beginning

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Two:**

**The Beginning**

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Luckily, I managed to reach the Mt. Silver Pokémon Center before midnight, so I didn't have to camp out until morning.

"Ahh..." I lay down on the cool sheets. Even though I usually came across as a tough-as-nails Pokémon Trainer, I had to admit that nothing beat a soft bed at night.

I folded my arms behind my head and stared up at the ceiling, looking at the shadows that the bed and furniture cast from the light of the bedside lamp. It reminded me of being at home, in bed, looking at the familiar sights around my room when it was dark...

I sighed, turned the lamp off, and closed my eyes.

I couldn't stop thinking about that half-faded memory.

What happened? In fact, I wondered, _when_ did it happen?

In the darkness of the room, I tried to remember...

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_I was little back then... it had to have been a long time ago, especially since I could barely remember any of this..._

_Where had I met him? How long ago was it?_

_And what was I going to say?--_

-- my eyes shot open. I couldn't think of it.

Sighing, I relaxed again. Maybe I shouldn't try to think too hard about that one incident.

Maybe the best place to begin... was back when everything started...

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_The first time I met Satoshi, the entire town of Masara was throwing a huge celebration. Why? Because of his birth, of course._

Masara Town, as any visitor can plainly see, is a tiny little speck on the map. In fact, Grandpa's laboratory takes up nearly half the land it sits on. Compared to my hometown, Tokiwa City, which lies just to the north of Masara, Satoshi basically comes from nowhere. However, because of its size, Masara has a sort of rural, cozy small-town atmosphere that the big cities like Tokiwa just can't pull off.

In a place like Masara, you live virtually next door to everyone in the city, and everybody knows you and calls you by your first name. (Well, everyone except Grandpa, who everyone simply called Ookido Hakase as a sign of respect. After all, who wouldn't want to get on the famous Pokémon Professor's good side?)

Since my family lived so close to the town and Grandpa, we made a lot of trips there. Of course, I was just a baby then, so I can't remember much of what we did. All I know is that Nanami, my older sister, says that every other week, we, Mom, and Dad would pack up the car and spend the weekend at Grandpa's. In this way, we got to know everyone who lived in Masara.

One of those people was a young woman named Hanako (who we referred to, like everyone else, by her first name). She was a good friend of Grandpa, who looked after her almost like she was our older sister.

When I was almost a year old, Hanako had a baby. So, of course, the entire town of Masara had to throw a wild party to celebrate.

Since I was just a baby, I don't remember much of the actual party itself. But whenever I ask, Nanami and Grandpa always tell me how much I wanted to see the baby I kept hearing about, until finally Hanako came to me with it in her arms.

It was a little boy, like me... and his name was Satoshi.

According to Hanako, Nanami, and Grandpa, Satoshi and I hit it off, right from the start. How a couple of babies can "hit it off," I'll never know, but for whatever reason, every time we visited Grandpa for the next couple of years, we always made a stop by Hanako and Satoshi's house.

When I was around three years old, those "visits" ceased. But this wasn't the reason for my broken friendship with Satoshi.

The visits stopped... because my residency in Masara Town became permanent.

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At this point in my reminiscing, I felt a twinge of sadness rise up in me. Even though I was still a toddler, I could still faintly recall what happened that spring...

It was at night, and Nanami was babysitting me for our parents while they went out to do some errands. It was raining rather hard outside, but no one thought anything of it...

Back in the present, I drew the covers around me. This memory hurt me, but I didn't mind reviving it every now and then. Maybe it was because I was too young to fully understand what had happened... maybe because it was one of the biggest impacts on my life...

... maybe because I didn't want to ever forget my parents' faces.

Though the images are a little foggy now, I remember our neighbors coming over and hugging us, while Nanami looked pale and scared. Early the next morning, as soon as the rain stopped, Grandpa rushed over and silently took us back to his house in Masara.

I wouldn't understand until much later, but...

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_Nanami was sitting at the table, crying. Grandpa was there, his arms around her._

_The floor was cold to my bare feet as I walked in, thoroughly confused._

"_Where is Mommy? Where is Daddy?"_

_Nanami stared at me, then without a word bent down, scooped me up, and held me tightly._

_But I didn't understand..._

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... my parents died that night in a car crash.

Grandpa was our closest relative, and he obtained custody of us. With that, we moved from Tokiwa to Masara, where all of the people welcomed us with open arms.

If anything good came from that night...

Maybe it was because she was little more than a child herself, or because she didn't have any parents, either... or maybe it was because Satoshi and I were nearly the same age, and she could visualize Satoshi in my position... For whatever the reason, Hanako always let me come over to her house whenever I wanted to.

When I was there, there were always dozens of snacks, freshly made, and plenty of hugs. That house became a second home to me, with all of its familiar sights and smells, the garden, the porch, and everything within kept neat and tidy (except for Satoshi and myself, of course). Hanako made herself like a surrogate mother to me, becoming that person that neither Grandpa nor Nanami could manage to be...

... and in that way, Satoshi became my brother.

My best friend.

Someone I could trust.

Someone I could tell everything to.

Someone I could...

... love.

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I felt myself growing more and more sleepy as the minutes ticked by. Before the darkness enveloped me and I drifted off into a well-deserved slumber, a question arose in me...

'_Why did that all end...?'_

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_I was walking from my house. My house, not Satoshi's._

_I had to... do something. I was going somewhere to do something..._

_I used the gate this time, instead of jumping the fence like I usually did. My feet were like bricks scraping against the sidewalk, unwillingly taking me somewhere..._

_I had no choice, though. I had to... I had to...?_

_What was it...?_

_But as soon as I strayed to that corner of my mind again, something shut me out, keeping me out as well as an iron door would._

_Something was hiding from me..._

_... or..._

_... was I hiding it from myself?_


	3. Pretending

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Three:**

**Pretending**

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Early the next morning, I woke up and got ready to set off toward my next destination. As much as I loved traveling, home was always best. I quickly ran my Pokémon by Joi, who pronounced everyone in top condition, and strode out the door, ready to make the most of the day.

The trail from Mt. Silver was pretty rocky terrain, even if you were traveling on the route set out by the Pokémon League. However, in the midst of the trodden earth, I spotted a single tuft of grass, growing where nothing else would--

I stopped, dead still.

Grass.

A field. A tall field, where the grass came up above my waist.

_That was where Satoshi had been._

But where was there a field like that? Was it somewhere that I had played as a kid?

I sighed, then slowly started walking again, not wanting to pause too long so that I could get most of this hike done before noontime.

As my feet mechanically plodded on, my mind started wandering, back to my childhood...

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A typical day for me started with getting up as early as I could. Then, I'd brush my teeth, get dressed, run downstairs to eat my breakfast, and then go out to play...

But somehow, every memory I had seemed to have Satoshi somewhere in it.

Almost every summer day, I remembered walking down the road to his house, bounding up the front stairs, past the flower pots Hanako always had sitting outside in Masara's warm weather, letting myself in the front door (which was always unlocked), and shouting, "Good morning!" From there, the day would unfold itself and the adventures would begin.

Sometimes, I'd decide that we should walk to the edge of the forest and play among the trees. Or maybe I thought we'd head north to Route 1 and gaze longingly at the world that awaited us. Or we'd even ask Hanako, Grandpa, or Nanami to take us to the southern edge of Masara, near the ocean.

But I remember Satoshi's favorite place to play; Grandpa's Pokémon corrals.

I don't think that the stacks upon stacks of books in the lab ever interested him at the time - we were, after all, only about four and five years old - and Grandpa didn't allow us near his research or Poké Ball storage area unsupervised. Even then, the shelves of plain red-and-white spheres weren't of any real interest to us, since we couldn't open them up and see what was inside.

Plus, they were usually empty. Grandpa always let the Trainers' Pokémon roam free. Most of the ones we saw on a regular basis were common ones, like Pidgey and Rattata, ones that we could see easily in Route 1 and even in Masara itself. But sometimes, we'd see Pokémon from far away in Kanto, like Ponyta or Rhyhorn.

That was what we lived for. That was what we loved to do.

And together, we dreamed of one day going out and finding wild Pokémon just like those, and catching them for our own.

And someday, we'd become the greatest Pokémon Masters ever.

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_A Pokémon Master..._

Yeah... that's what every kid wants to be when they grow up, and we were no exception.

I guess going through life has changed me a little bit. I've changed from wanting to have the strongest Pokémon in the world to wanting to learn more about them.

When you're little, you have a completely pure view of the world. You don't realize how few people make it to the top and are able to stay there. You just think that you'll be able to do it, when you're a little older, a little taller, and a little bit stronger.

So you practice. And that's what Satoshi and I did, almost every day for nearly ten years.

No one under the age of ten is allowed to have a Pokémon Trainer's license, of course. And even though you're allowed to have Pokémon as pets, neither of us did. Grandpa had enough Pokémon living in the laboratory as it was, and I think Hanako was a little bit too sheltering of Satoshi to let him have one. So we played pretend.

Satoshi's never been really good at remembering things, so he couldn't ever recall a Pokémon's name when he was little. So he'd pick up rocks, yell "go!", and pretend something came out of it.

I, on the other hand, had a pretty good memory. Plus, I knew the basics of how Trainers started off... after all, I'd seen it plenty of times before.

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"_You can have one of these three Pokémon... Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle," I said, repeating what I'd heard so many times from Grandpa._

"_One?" Satoshi frowned._

_I sighed. "Yes! Just one!"_

"_How come not all?"_

"_That's mean! If you take them all, there's none left for anybody else!"_

"_Oh..." Satoshi stared hard at the three rocks I was holding, though in his mind, I knew he was seeing real Poké Balls. "Um... what they?"_

_I just about dropped the 'Poké Balls' right then and there. "Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle!"_

"_Oh!" Satoshi smiled. Then he asked, "Which one best?"_

_I shook my head. "Grandpa says they're the same. But, Bulbasaur is good against Squirtle, and Squirtle's good against Charmander..."_

"_... and Charmander good 'gainst Bulbasaur!" Satoshi finished._

"_Yup. So, which one?" I asked, getting a little impatient with my best friend._

"_... why not all? Just make-believe!"_

"_Satoshi!" I yelled. Then I smirked at him._

"_... Shigeru?"_

"_Go, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle! Attack!"_

"_Eeeyaaa!" Satoshi ducked as I tossed the rocks at him, laughing._

"_And here's some Poké Balls," I shouted as I threw more rocks and some dirt, "and here's a PokéDex!" I yelled, throwing a piece of tree bark for good measure._

_Satoshi looked up. "What's... 'PokéDex'?"_

"_I don't know!" I yelled, throwing another one at him._

_After a few more minutes of play-battles, we both ended up flopping down on the grass. I sighed and said, "Satoshi, I'm gonna be the best Trainer in the world..."_

"_Me too..."_

"_And I know which Pokémon I want, too!" I said._

"_Me too!"_

"_Huh?" I looked at Satoshi, a little surprised. After all, this was the kid who couldn't even remember the names and types of the three starter Pokémon. "Which one do you want?"_

"_Don't know." I rolled my eyes. "But it gonna be the best! Better than the others!"_

"_Silly. Grandpa says there's no such thing as a Pokémon that's stronger than all of the others."_

"_... I find one. One that is!"_

"_Whatever..."_

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After I started out on my journey, I of course found out that he'd ended up starting with Pikachu. Not with Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle (although all three ended up in his possession, after all). That same memory had found its way to my mind, both on that day and this one.

I sighed as I looked up. The sun was starting to reach its highest point again. It'd been one day since I'd left Mt. Silver...

... and I wasn't any closer to remembering what I was trying to forget.

Sitting down by the side of the road, I vaguely wondered why I was trying to remember now, of all times. What had happened between now and... then, whenever it was?

Oh well. As I kept going that day, following the path down the mountain, I noticed the grass getting taller. In fact, it sort of reminded me of Grandpa's fields, back home...

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_The fields..._


	4. The Field

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Four:**

**The Field**

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I don't think we'd have even found the way into that field if it wasn't for Satoshi.

I think it was during a game of hide-and-seek. I was probably It. I liked being It, especially since Satoshi usually hid in the same places over and over again. True, the actual "seeking" part wasn't very exciting that way, but the ensuing chase always was.

Closing my eyes, I leaned against the tree that we used as our base. "One... two... three..." I counted. I could hear the rustle of branches, meaning that Satoshi was hiding in the bushes by the fence...

Nevertheless, it was cheating to start looking before you finished counting. "Four five six seven eight nine ten, ready or not here I come!" I yelled, dashing away from the tree and toward the fence.

The fence was a wooden fence that ran along the side of my backyard. All it really consisted of was wooden posts stuck into the dirt, with more logs stuck into those, running parallel to the ground. It was also the only thing that separated my house and yard from Grandpa's laboratory fields. On one side, our house's side, the grass was short and trimmed. On the other side, the field grew wild and untamed, the blades of grass long and golden in the summer heat. The adults had warned us to never go into there, since that was where Grandpa kept some of the Pokémon that the Trainers sent back to him.

Like I said, Satoshi never was good at remembering things.

Running to the bushes, I knew I had him trapped. With home base at my back, he'd have to go right through me to get to the safe spot. Plus, the fence was behind him, and he'd never jump the fence.

... he went under it.

"Satoshi! No! Wait!" I yelled, but he kept going.

"_Satoshi! Don't go in there!"_ However, it was to no avail. This time, he wasn't listening to me...

... and I got angry.

More angry than I could remember ever being.

_He hadn't listened to me._

"_Get back here!"_ Without another thought, I was under the fence, squirming my way through the dirt and tall grass.

It was hard to find him, because the grass was nearly as tall as we were. Still, my frustration merely pushed me farther. Luckily, wherever we walked, the grass got trampled down.

"_Satoshi! Where are you?! Come here!"_

"_Shigeru!"_

There he was. I turned in the direction of his voice.

"_I'm gonna tag you!"_

"Shigeru!!"

I paused, hearing something different in Satoshi's voice. "Satoshi? Where are you?"

"Shigeruuu!!"

There was a high-pitched edge to his voice now. My anger quickly being doused with worry, I scrambled through the grass. I began to remember Grandpa telling me about the big Pokémon that lived in this field, and how little kids could get lost in it... "Satoshi!"

Just then, I burst into a flattened area of grass, parting the blades with my hands. There was Satoshi, sitting, legs sprawled out on the ground. He had fallen. Tears were starting to well up in his eyes.

"Satoshi? What's wrong?" I asked. He pointed to his legs. Since he was wearing shorts, the rough grass had been able to scratch him up as he ran. His bare feet looked particularly pained. It was just then that I noticed my own feet were hurting, too. Even though our feet had toughened up from climbing and running in our backyards all the time, the field grass was much sharper and stiffer.

"It's okay, Satoshi," I said, kneeling beside him. But he didn't seem much more comforted, and promptly wiped his nose and said...

"Shigeru... we lost!"

'_Oh...'_ Just then, a certain word passed through my mind that I knew I wasn't allowed to say. But who could've blamed me? I'd seen the numbers in Grandpa's lab; this field was _huge_, especially to a couple of little kids, and there were supposed to be so many big Pokémon roaming around...

While I was thinking about how to get out of this mess, Satoshi got up and started toddling off past me. I turned to him and frowned. "Don't go anywhere! If you get lost... stay where you are!" But to my surprise, he didn't listen again. Frustrated, I stood up...

_... and there was a Pokémon, not more than a few yards from us!_

It wasn't a very big Pokémon... in fact, it didn't even come up to my waist. It was a little bird Pokémon, brown and white, and it kept chirping.

"Pidgey..." I whispered in awe. Satoshi, not paying attention, kept walking toward it. "Satoshi, wait!" I hissed. "It might attack you!"

"Bird, Shigeru!" he responded, pointing.

I rolled my eyes. "No! That's a Pidgey!"

Satoshi turned and frowned at me. "Pidgey?"

"Yes! That's its name!" All the while, the Pidgey merely looked at us with its huge eyes. I wondered if it was a Trainer's Pidgey, or if it was wild and came from Route 1. It did look tame enough...

"... bird," Satoshi finally decided. Without another word, he closed the distance between him and the Pidgey. Surprised, I watched as the Pidgey allowed Satoshi to pet it for a while.

I couldn't help myself. Taking light steps (my feet were still hurting) toward the Pidgey, I reached out and patted its head, too.

"Good Pidgey... nice Pidgey..." I murmured, like I had seen Grandpa do with other Pokémon. However, I got a bit carried away, and my hand got too close to its beak... _"Ouch!"_ I shouted as it nipped me.

Satoshi looked at me in surprise, and I saw his face darken into a frown. "Bad bird!" he shouted, waving his arms at it. "Go away!" The Pidgey tilted its head, then took off, flapping its wings and kicking up dust at us.

When the dust had cleared and we'd stopped coughing, I rubbed my eyes and watched the Pidgey flying away. "That was Sand-Attack..." I mumbled.

"Sand... Attack..." Satoshi repeated, as if he was storing the word away (although I was sure he'd forget it in a few minutes).

"Ugh..." I muttered as I stood up. "Let's go home, Satoshi."

"Shigeru? We still lost."

I sighed, suddenly remembering our predicament. "Arrgh!"

"Shigeru?" I heard someone call, someone who wasn't Satoshi...

"Grandpa?" I yelled back, hearing someone pushing their way through the grass. "Grandpa, where are you?"

"I'm right over here, Shigeru! Stay where you are!"

I breathed out a sigh of relief. Since Grandpa was so tall, he'd be able to see over the grass better than us. "It's okay, Satoshi. Grandpa's coming."

"Grampa! Grampa!" Satoshi shouted happily.

In no time at all, Grandpa had found us and was taking us back home, carrying Satoshi piggyback and holding my hand the whole way. Then, we got a long, long lecture about how we should never go out into the fields by ourselves, how we could've gotten hurt, blah blah blah. When Grandpa started getting off track and reciting poetry about the Pokémon in the field (_"Strong hooves pounding down; Many tails whipping like blades; Tauros are running"_), Satoshi and I figured that was a good enough time to get away.

We never told anyone about the incident with the Pidgey. After all, its beak didn't even break the skin on my hand.

And after that, we spent all of our extra time in that field.

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I paused and looked down the road. There was still a long way to go before I could even dream of reaching Tokiwa...

But at least I knew where I had been that day. It must have been Grandpa's field. And since the grass had seemed shorter than that first day, I must have been older then.

I started walking again, but it was an automatic movement. My mind was elsewhere.

'_What else happened after that...?'_

Then I remembered.

School.


	5. School Days

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Five:**

**School Days**

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My birthday falls on November 16th, while Satoshi's is on August 28th. Since I missed the September cutoff date for starting school, the two of us ended up in the same grade, even though our ages were at the extremes.

From kindergarten, the two of us were inseparable. There really weren't many other kids in Masara, but all of them in our grade were older and bigger than Satoshi. Ever since he was very young, everyone I knew had been protective of him. His mom, my grandpa, Nanami... and me. Hanako-san had always been convinced that Satoshi was too small or too fragile to play with the bigger kids, me excepted. As a result, he'd lived a pretty isolated life, and I was his only window out of it.

At school, it was no different. Satoshi was friendly enough, but I think it was the other kids who didn't include him in whatever they were doing. Since I couldn't just abandon my best friend (and at that thought, I wondered what could've possibly separated us), I'd stayed by his side all through that year. We did everything side by side. In fact, I'm pretty sure the teachers and other adults fondly reminisce about how they jokingly (and I think, accidentally) called us "Satoru" from time to time.

School in Masara is a little different from attending school in the other, bigger towns. First of all, there's usually only one class in each grade, so you're pretty much forced to know everyone. Second, you learn a _lot_ about Pokémon. After all, who wouldn't want to learn from Ookido Hakase himself?

As it was, Grandpa occasionally paid visits to our school. Since I was now attending, those visits became more frequent, and one day, our kindergarten class got to visit his lab for a field trip. Of course, Satoshi and I weren't as excited as some of the others, seeing as how we'd been there a bazillion times before. Even so, I noticed that everyone's snacks seemed to disappear extra fast that morning, including Satoshi's.

We all trotted up the stairs to Grandpa's lab in a single file line... except for Satoshi and me, who went alongside each other in back, as always. When we got up to the top, everyone stared at the door in awe, until I got irritated and knocked on it, like I had so many times before. When Grandpa opened the door, he greeted us warmly, then invited us in.

Everyone kept staring with excitement at the everyday things I had grown up with! The stacks of books, the Poké Balls littering the desks, even murmuring about that moldy smell that comes with too many papers put away in storage. But Satoshi and I were waiting for the good part; the Pokémon. Finally, Grandpa announced, "Who would like to see a Pokémon up close?"

"We going to the field...?" Satoshi whispered to me. I shrugged, not really caring. We'd been to that field so many times now, I was sure that if the entire school group got lost, I'd be able to find a way back for us.

To our disappointment, Grandpa merely took us out to the back of his lab, where the grass was kept short and the Pokémon were very small, like the Pidgey we'd encountered before. Everyone began "aww"-ing over the Pokémon like Nidoran and Rattata, but Satoshi and I were bored. After all, even though we'd searched the big field through and through, we'd never seen a Pokémon bigger than us.

While the rest of the group was playing in Grandpa's little petting zoo, Satoshi and I wandered off, clambering over and through the fence (I was too big to fit under it now, and whatever I did, Satoshi copied).

"Where do you want to go?" I asked Satoshi. He shrugged, imitating me from earlier.

"We been everywhere. You think there's Pokémon here?" he asked, showing for the first time a shadow of doubt about this field.

"... of course I'm sure!" I said, starting to wonder myself. "We just have to find... what are you doing?"

Satoshi was reaching into his pockets, fumbling around for something. To my utter surprise, he drew out a cookie, our snack from that morning. "See? Pokémon food!" he announced proudly.

"Satoshi, that's not..."

"Come here, Pokémon!" he shouted, throwing the cookie into the grass. I sighed at the loss of a perfectly good snack. But before I could scold him further...

"Shigeru! Pokémon!"

Stunned, both of us stepped backward as out of the grass rose a giant, flaming horse! Judging from the ashes falling from its mane, Satoshi had hit it right in the head...

"_Raaa!"_

"Run, Satoshi!" Hurriedly, we scrambled back to where the others were, scratching our hands on the fence. Grandpa turned to us.

"Were you in that corral _again?"_

"Grampa! Big Pokémon! All on fire! _Whooosh!"_ Satoshi yelped, panting, and all the while waving his arms around excitedly, trying to show how big that Pokémon had been.

"Fire?" the teacher repeated worriedly.

"Oh... that'll be that Rapidash that just got here..." Grandpa said, waving it off. Just then, the fire horse, the Rapidash, came ambling up to the fence, sticking its nose out and watching everyone carefully. Satoshi and I hid behind Grandpa, who merely laughed.

"Don't worry, boys. That's a gentle one," he reassured us. Walking over to pat its head, he started throwing out Pokémon facts. "Did you know that Rapidash can run at 150 miles an hour? It's just about the fastest thing alive!"

"Ooh..." our classmates murmured. Satoshi and I looked at each other. I was a little surprised when he frowned.

"What's wrong?" I asked, worried that he might have hurt himself climbing the wooden fence so quickly.

"No more Pokémon food..."

I blinked, then laughed. "Don't worry! Grandpa has tons of Pokémon food in the storage room!"

Satoshi brightened up. "Storage room!" The two of us tore off for where we knew the bags of Pokémon food were kept.

Grandpa suddenly noticed us running off. "Hey! You two! Come back here!..."

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The sun was warm and bright by now, the same brightness that came off of a Rapidash's fiery mane and tail. I smiled at the memory.

Virtually every kid loves Pokémon. There are so many different kinds, and each individual has its own personality, that it's hard not to find one that fits you. And you can never get bored with them, either; they're always changing and evolving, just like you do.

_Changing..._

Even though the day was sunny, I couldn't help but feel a cloud hanging over me. Ever since that first day, when I started thinking about that little itch in the back of my mind, it had felt like there was a huge weight hanging over me... I couldn't explain it, but it was starting to stress me out, like the tension and the dread before a huge test. My feet started moving a little faster, as if the journey home would bring me to some answers.

I thought. What else did I do in school?

'_Pokémon Lessons!'_ Of course! I nearly smacked myself in the face.

Satoshi had loved Pokémon Lessons... Not being the type who was particularly good at sitting down and learning his times tables, he'd always been excited when we finally started learning about something that he enjoyed. Plus, I'd always been there to give him tips when he couldn't think of anything...

... although, thinking back, I'd really been the one with all of the knowledge...

I paused in my thoughts.

What had happened to that? Satoshi had always come to me for all of the answers he needed. He'd always trusted what I had to say, and even when I didn't know what was right, he made decisions based on my thoughts.

What happened? It would've taken something strong to break that trust...

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"_Why do you always copy..."_

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I froze, both inside and out. My mind instantly switched to a blank, and I couldn't move a muscle...

I started thinking about what I'd do once I got home, what I'd eat, how I'd let my Pokémon out into the corral, how I might fire up the old Super Nintendo and...

'_Satoshi got a Super Nintendo for his eighth birthday...'_

"_Gah!"_ I shouted. Without knowing why, I took off running down the trail. Unfortunately, the trail was quite rocky and bumpy, and I nearly tripped. Sinking to my knees, and glad that no one could see me, I panted until I caught my breath. After a few minutes of rest and a blank mind, I slowly got up and kept walking.

Okay... Pokémon Lessons...

_Glad to find something to keep my mind occupied, I kept walking..._

_... but I knew now._

_Something had changed._

_... some__**one**__ had changed._


	6. Growing Different, Growing Apart

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Six:**

**Growing Different, Growing Apart**

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Every Friday, if the class had behaved during the week, the elementary teachers got together to reward us. Since there were so few kids in the school, they had us all pool together in the gym. There, we got to have every schoolkid's dream: Pokémon Lessons.

Sometimes, they were math lessons (_"If three Pidgey are in a tree, and two fly away, how many are left?"_). Sometimes, they were miscellaneous things, like colors (_"If you take Poliwag's color and Kakuna's color and mix them together, what color do you get?"_). Sometimes, they were even about science (_"When handling Electric Pokémon, rubber gloves will help you out, because rubber is not a conductor of electricity"_).

Of course, everyone's favorite lessons were always about battling. Since this _was_ supposed to be a reward, after all, the teachers would sometimes even get Grandpa to come down with a few Pokémon, and he would show us some rather tame mock battles.

"... so you see, Water types are strong against Fire types. That's fairly easy to remember, since you can put out a fire with water, right?" Grandpa said, pointing to the whiteboard.

"_Briiing!"_

"Oh my, would you look at the time?" Grandpa laughed. "Session's over, everyone!"

And with that, everyone would look forward to another happy weekend...

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I was always good at Pokémon Lessons about battling. I don't know how, and I don't really know why, but I was good at them. Besides, I was expected to be good with Pokémon... look at my grandfather. Everyone knew me as the little Ookido kid who knew everything there was to know about Pokémon.

And I was the one who everyone expected to do the impossible. Everyone expected me to someday become the best Pokémon Master in the world.

Of course, that was my dream anyway. But what fewer people knew was that there was one other boy who dreamed to be a Pokémon Master as fervently as I did...

...

_... I think the conversation happened when we were both in first grade, when we were about six and seven..._

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"_Shigeru?"_

"Yeah, Satoshi?" I turned to him. We were both lying on our backs out in the field. It was fun to just lie down in that sea of grass and watch the clouds floating by...

"... I want to be a Pokémon Master when I grow up, too," he whispered.

"Cool!" I smiled.

"But, Shigeru..." he trailed off.

"What?"

"I... I want to be the best Pokémon Master ever," he said, a smile slowly growing as he finished the sentence. "The best one ever."

"That's cool. I've thought about that before," I responded.

"But, Shigeru...!"

"What?" I asked. "If we both aim for the same thing, then we can travel together when we turn ten. We can go all over the world and be the best!"

"..." But Satoshi was quiet.

"You okay?" I asked, rolling over onto my stomach. "Did you eat too much again?"

He shook his head. We both sat there in silence for a few minutes, until I spoke up, "Let's go play hide-and-seek! You're hiding." Satoshi looked up at me and smiled.

"Okay!" he replied, scrambling to his feet.

"I'm going to start counting!" I announced, covering my eyes with my hands. "One... two... three..." But the rustle of grass signaled that Satoshi was long gone, anyway. The rest of the day passed just like the last few years had; the two of us playing away into the sunset.

It wasn't until that night, just as I was getting ready to sleep, did I understand Satoshi's questions.

Didn't "the best" mean... one person?

And, of the two of us...

_... I was the best._

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That was the first day that I realized it. Even though Satoshi was my best friend, even though I had always treated him like we were the same... we weren't. Nevertheless, we kept going about our lives like nothing was any different. Satoshi was still my friend...

... but we were getting closer to... whatever had happened.

After that day, though, I started to notice little things about Satoshi that I had never given much thought to before. The way he always walked next to me or behind me, never in front. The way he asked me for answers when he couldn't think of them himself. Somehow, I began to realize how dependent he was on me...

... and I liked it.

I _liked_ the feeling of having to take care of someone else. I _liked_ the idea of having someone look up to me.

And even though I never spoke my last thought aloud, I knew it was the most cruel of them all.

_... I liked the idea of being superior to someone else._

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From a young age, I knew that it was wrong to think something like that. After all, Satoshi and I were just... different. It's what they teach you in school. Everyone's a little bit different, everyone's unique, and everyone is special. That's what makes the world interesting. I knew that. Everybody knew that. And that's what I thought...

... at least... that's what I wanted to think.

That's what I wanted to say. Satoshi was my _friend._ And as his friend, I couldn't let the idea enter my head that...

_But I couldn't help it._ Back then, I was young. Immature. Too immature, too selfish, too carried away with what made myself happy... I was sure that I knew the truth about everything. And this was no exception. It felt to me like there was a voice hovering around me, shouting it out, screaming it in my face, wanting to say it to the world...

_... that I was better than Satoshi._

Better at everything. Better at school, playing games, Pokémon, _everything,_ the whole nine yards. I was taller, stronger, more well-known. People paid more attention to _me_ than they ever would to Satoshi.

_I_ was the special one.

Satoshi... wasn't.

When I stood next to him, I was in a position of power. And nothing that anyone could say or do could change that. I mean, even _he_ knew it. So why bother to deny it?

_Because I didn't want things to change._

Despite what I thought, I knew that deep down, I didn't want things to be different from how they had always been. I knew that no matter what my relationship was with Satoshi, no matter what I started to think, that Satoshi's trust and friendship were the most important things in my life.

I couldn't lose that.

Because if I lost that, I lost everything.

Over the past years, he had become the center of my life. Without him, I had nothing.

No friends, no one to confide in, no one to play with...

_... and no one to depend on me._

I smiled as I remembered my revelation, all those years ago... that moment of clarity when I realized it...

Without Satoshi, my life meant next to nothing. The person that I had thought I was better than was my whole reason for existing.

I knew what I loved to do. I loved, and I wanted, to protect Satoshi. At that point, I wanted nothing more than to keep him safe. Keep him safe, so that nothing could ever hurt the happiness between us. If that meant bending the rules and making it so that "the best" could be two people, then so be it.

Satoshi was my friend. And just as he depended on me, I depended on him. Wasn't that friendship in its entirety?

Just then, a near stumble on the road because of my distracted thoughts brought me back to the present. Even so, I couldn't help but keep smiling. Memories like those have a tendency to make you do that.

But now I was back to square one. I knew that I wouldn't have let go of Satoshi so easily. So what had happened?

The thought crossed my mind. A feeling of despair started to well up in me.

_... had it been Satoshi?_


	7. Too Pure to Hurt Anyone

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Seven:**

**Too Pure to Hurt Anyone**

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The sun was already starting to set, and I knew that the next Pokémon Center was a few hours away on foot. Dropping my backpack on the ground and unrolling my sleeping bag, I busied myself with the routine of setting up camp for the night, under the shade of some trees lining the edge of the road. But as soon as I was warm and comfortable, I found myself with idle hands and an equally idle mind. And when your mind is idle, it has a tendency to wander...

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Satoshi. Trusting, innocent, naïve little Satoshi.

_Would he have...?_

I swallowed. Even though something in my mind told me that this situation wasn't right, I still thought about it.

_Somehow, these thoughts seemed familiar... had they occurred to me before?_

Could he have been the one who broke off our friendship...? I shook my head. It just didn't seem like him.

But still... maybe he'd gotten tired of hanging around someone like me, no matter how much I treated him like a friend. Maybe he could sense the gap in ability between us... after all, he'd been the one who almost brought it up. Maybe he thought that as long as he was around me, he'd never get his time in the spotlight...

Thinking back to our battle in the tournament, I smiled grimly. Well, if that was the case, it was certainly true.

It wouldn't make sense for me to give up someone who meant so much to me. Why would I have just pushed him out of my life like that? No, it had to have been Satoshi who did it...

I swallowed. Was that the memory that kept eluding me? The one that took place in Grandpa's field, when we were young, maybe just a little older than when we had been during that conversation about "the best"?

_It had to have been him..._

But how could have done it? Back then, he was just as reckless as he was now, but he wasn't the type to act poorly to other people. In fact, he had never _been_ that sort of person, then and now. How could he have...?

'_... this isn't right..._

'_You can't pretend. You can't hide._

'_Satoshi wouldn't hurt you...'_

Then I knew. And I realized that I had known it all along.

Satoshi couldn't have done something like that. He was the kind of person who was continuously making friendships, not breaking them off. Even if he did feel stressed or pressured from being around me all the time, he'd have certainly said something to me, something that I'd remember. He wouldn't have stopped being friends just because of that.

No. No way. He was too innocent for that. In fact, "innocent" was hardly the word for him. "Pure," perhaps. The Satoshi I knew wouldn't have turned against anyone.

As these thoughts came into my mind, I somehow felt relieved. In my heart, I knew that Satoshi would never have hurt me like that of his own accord.

That was good. Unfortunately, this left me with the only option left.

The adults in Masara knew how strong the friendship was between Satoshi and me. They wouldn't have done anything to that, especially since they all knew how small and "weak" Satoshi was, compared to most kids his age. The kids older than us, Nanami's friends, thought it was "cute" that we hung around each other so much. The kids our age had never paid particular attention to us, but they regarded Satoshi as someone of importance, since he was the one person I played with and considered my best friend. As for me, well... I was Ookido Hakase's grandson, and that demands some respect in itself.

Even though I had assured myself that I couldn't have... that I would have _never_...

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_I set out that morning with a heavy heart... This was something that I had to do..._

_Something that couldn't wait._

_Summer was still weighing heavily in the air, like it always does in Masara Augusts. Being so far south, Masara's climate is usually warm and sunny... but for me, no amount of warmth could comfort me that day._

_I made my way to Grandpa's laboratory, where I knew he'd be waiting. He always was. I used the wooden gate that day, a strange occurrence for someone who normally jumped the fence like it was nothing._

_There was a tree in the middle of the field. We'd found it a long time ago and used it as a landmark in the otherwise unending sea of waving stalks. It was also used by some Pokémon as shade._

_And there he was..._

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'_That was a nice tree...'_

My eyes opened.

It was that same memory. The same one that I always pushed out of my mind with thoughts of something else. I felt it fade away, then let out a sigh. I realized that I'd been holding my breath.

But there was no doubt left in my mind.

For some reason, for some inexplicable reason that I couldn't remember...

... _I_ had ended our friendship.

But why? I was fully awake by now, even though the millions of twinkling stars in the sky told me to sleep.

My eyes wandered to the moon, which was slowly making her way across the sky. It was a crescent moon that night, although I couldn't tell whether it was waning or waxing. At any rate, I knew it was changing, one way or the other...

_Changing..._

That had to have been it. There was no other explanation. _Something_ had changed.

I didn't know when, and I didn't know how. I didn't even know _what_ had changed. But whatever it was, it had taken my life down the drain...

Satoshi hadn't changed. When I had seen him back at the tournament, he was still the same old Satoshi that I remembered... that is, until he saw me. Then, his entire demeanor had changed...

... but it didn't seem hateful. As a matter of fact, in the past six or so years that we'd been through-and-through rivals, he'd never seemed to have wanted to hurt me at all. As strange as it sounded, I'd never felt like he was trying to full-out oppose me.

_I'd still been in control. I'd still been the superior one._

And it had always been as if he was trying to prove something to me...

Maybe... prove himself my equal? After all, when I'd brought up the issue of that Poké Ball that we'd both caught in the river, he called it "the time we tied"... not "the time I won" or "the time I lost." Just the "tie." And even if he was trying to prove himself _ better,_ it never seemed to come across that way. All through our Pokémon journeys, I'd always been one step ahead of him (and maybe even more, at that).

I don't think I'd ever know what he was thinking during those encounters. But to me, even though we were on opposing sides now, it always felt _like things hadn't really changed..._

I was still the one in charge. He was still trying to keep up with me.

The only difference was that now, there was so much tension between us... Whenever Satoshi looked at me, I could see a certain fire in his eyes, something that had never been there when we were kids...

But whenever I saw him with his friends, when he wasn't aware of my presence, I saw the same old Satoshi I remembered. Full of laughter, easygoing, relaxed. And, as always, he was with people he could fall back on.

Kasumi, Takeshi... people who he trusted, and who trusted him back.

His friends.

When I saw him at the tournament, I was distracted. I had training and Pokémon on my mind, 24/7. I didn't stop to think about him like I was doing now...

But now, as I thought back, I could see that Satoshi was in nearly the same situation as he had been with me, almost seven years ago...

Satoshi had been the only person I knew who ever insisted on going on a Pokémon journey with someone else. I could recall that first day, when he was just a pale, skinny little kid with a big heart and a disobedient Pikachu, setting out on the adventure of his life...

Alone. And when I next contacted Grandpa to see how our bet was going (I won), he reported to me something a bit frightening that Hanako had said: Satoshi had been out in the thunderstorm all night. When he arrived in Tokiwa, his Pikachu was burned out and he himself was soaked, covered with scrapes and bruises.

Of course, by then it had been some time since I had considered Satoshi my "friend," but even so...

I could remember brushing it off without too much thought. The kid was alive, nothing was broken, no worries.

How did I go from wishing I could share the top spot in the elite with someone to not worrying about him, who'd shown up a day late and could've gotten seriously hurt out there?

Even though it was still weighing pretty heavily on my mind, I found myself dozing off...


	8. Almost There

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Eight:**

**Almost There**

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_Second grade was nearing its end. It was the final Pokémon Lesson of the year, and the teachers were making it a good one._

"_All right, kids!" one of them said. "Here's a review question for you. When you're putting out a fire, what kind of Pokémon would work well to fight it?"_

_A bunch of hands immediately shot up. The teacher's eyes scanned the multitude of kids, then smiled at one._

"_Yes, Satoshi?"_

"_Water!" he shouted, perhaps a bit louder than necessary. Then again, maybe that was just a consequence for sitting next to him._

"_Very good!" the teacher applauded him. Instantly, nearly all of the hands went down... except for one. The teacher seemed a bit puzzled; after all, not many kids would think of the other answer to the question. But then again, this wasn't just any kid..._

"_Yes?" she asked, calling on the last hand._

"_Ground works, too..." the voice said, sounding quite small in the silent gym._

"_Oh!" The teacher was a little surprised. "Well, that's also correct."_

_Satoshi glanced at the speaker, a disappointed look on his face. Quickly, he raised his hand. Without being called on, he at once said, "I wanna change my answer. Ground is better than Water!"_

"_Oh, don't worry, Satoshi," the teacher said cheerfully. "Both of you had terrific answers. Now, children," she said, turning to the whiteboard, "to put out a fire, you can either douse it with water, as Satoshi said, or, with dirt, you can..."_

_Satoshi was quiet. I was quiet, too._

_Things were changing between us. The teacher finished her sentence._

"_... smother it, like Shigeru mentioned."_

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Slowly, I became aware that the sun was up and that the shadows of the trees had moved off of me some time ago. Stretching, I clambered out of my sleeping bag and fixed myself something quick to eat. I let my Pokémon out of their Poké Balls so that they could stretch their legs a bit, too.

_Changes..._ It seemed like that word was in my thoughts nearly all the time now.

Something had happened. I had caused that something. And that _something_ had changed everything.

I was close to Tokiwa... close to home. And I was starting to get close to the answers I was trying to find. So many clues... but no clear answer for me.

I sighed and closed my eyes. All of my memories seemed so jumbled up... like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, some put together, some still in the box. Maybe even some lost for good.

Grandpa's field. Something I had to do. Pokémon Lessons. Satoshi.

_Satoshi..._

Satoshi growing up with me. Satoshi playing every day for hours with me. Satoshi virtually living at my house, and me at his. Satoshi following me from the day he could crawl. Satoshi learning with me, walking beside me, getting in trouble with me, depending on me, copying me--

_Copying me._

_That was it..._

I sat up. It was time to set off. I quickly recalled my Pokémon and packed everything back where it belonged.

As I did, my hand knocked across the small pocket that had used to hold that half Poké Ball... That Poké Ball from the day we tied...

That was from after... whatever it was happened.

I'd seen Satoshi fishing out on the river that runs near Masara Town, when I decided to go out there and show him who was better at catching the Water Pokémon that lived there. Almost as soon as I got there, a Magikarp came flying out of the water...

... and proceeded to use Flail all over Satoshi's face. The stupid kid didn't expect a thing, and so fell over backward. Laughing at him, I challenged him and took complete advantage of his weakness...

"_Name all of Magikarp's attacks!"_

"_No problem! Now, let's see..."_ A few awkward seconds passed, and once again I was in control...

Suddenly, when we least expected it, both of our fishing hooks caught the same thing; a rusty old Poké Ball. We eventually ran up and down the banks of the river, both pulling at it, until we pulled it right apart at the hinges.

"_I guess... it's a tie, huh?"_ Satoshi said, an almost apologetic smile on his face.

"_No!"_ I said roughly to him. _"Tying with you is just as bad as losing!"_ And with that, I had walked off, leaving him with a shocked expression on his face. But when a few seconds passed, I could feel his anger penetrating my back. He didn't want to be my inferior any more...

He wanted to be my equal.

And like how I had felt before, he wanted things to be just like how they had been in the past.

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He'd always copied me. Always, always, always. Never daring to try to get ahead of me. Never wanting to fall behind.

But he couldn't help it. I had Grandpa on my side. He didn't have anyone. In a way, we were both in the same predicament; he only had a mother, while I only had Grandpa and Nanami. Our families were tiny and broken. Even between the two of us, we were still missing what so many other kids had; aunts, uncles, cousins... even fathers.

Maybe, somehow, that was how we had ended up together. With so much missing in our lives, we banded together and formed a family of our own. After all, Grandpa had taken care of Hanako-san, who also didn't have any family, while she was still in school, and Hanako and Nanami were almost like sisters. Somehow, we had ourselves a different, yet happy family...

But even with that going for him, Satoshi still didn't have a chance next to me. Wherever I went, the people followed _me_; they wouldn't follow Satoshi.

Maybe that's why we went to the field so often. The field was virtually limitless, and no one in their right mind would go there. We had found ourselves an isolated paradise, where we were truly equal and there _was_ no spotlight.

When I was friends with Satoshi, I shunned that attention, even though I was the kind of person who loved being in the middle of everything. But still, I thought, why should I have it when my best friend, who shared my dream and wished for it as much as I did, not get the attention that I seemed to have more than enough of? But after that day, I started to relish it and show it off. It was something that I had... something that I could prove to Satoshi that he didn't possess. It was almost like taunting him...

_Taunting him..._ I'd done that, all throughout our Pokémon journeys. Making fun of him for the smallest things, downplaying any successes that he'd had. Making it seem like he'd never be able to reach where I was...

_But he did._ Even though the more recent memories were downers for me, there was no bitterness in them. He'd beaten me, fair and square. In a battle more intense than any I'd ever had, he'd proved to be the better Trainer. I guess he'd worked hard for that...

_For some reason, that idea felt comforting to me..._

I smiled. I guess, even though we'd been through years of rivalry, Satoshi's win had still been a reason for me to celebrate. Deep down, we were still friends.

I had given him back that half Poké Ball... and in that way, I had fixed something that we broke.

Something that, as I looked back, _I_ broke. If I hadn't taken it away from him... if I hadn't been so stubborn...

... but he succeeded anyway. He made it.

And all I could do was be glad for him.

Maybe being his rival hadn't been such a bad thing. If we had stayed friends... and if we _had_ ended up traveling together...

... he'd never have gotten to where he was now.

It was true. He'd have never gotten to the spotlight with me around.

My absence had been the difference. I just knew it.

_And I was happy._

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_I knew what I had to do._

_With me around, he couldn't grow up. As long as he was depending on me for everything, there was only so much he could do. He would never dare to try and surpass me as long as we were friends..._

_It's not like I really knew the consequences of what was going to happen. I only knew that I had been thinking about this for weeks, months... maybe even the entire past year. And at any rate, at this age, I thought I knew everything there was to know about life in general._

_As I made my way to Grandpa's lab, my mind was made up._

_I just didn't know how much it would hurt._

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'_Jeez, it's getting late...'_

I glanced at the sky. If I hurried, maybe I could reach Tokiwa before the sun went down...

Without another thought, I quickened my pace, watching the ground and focusing on nothing.


	9. That Day

**That Day.**

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I reached Tokiwa at about seven o' clock that evening, and it was definitely nice to be back with civilization. I noticed a few people glancing at me and whispering, probably since they'd seen me on TV during the tournament. I grinned despite myself. After all these years, I still liked the attention, although I continued to draw the line at the paparazzi...

As usual, my first stop was the Pokémon Center. Joi-san seemed happy to see me. After doing a quick checkup on my Pokémon, she cheerfully asked, "Do you need to call your grandfather? Phone's over there."

I shook my head. "Nah. I think I'll surprise him. Besides, he's expecting me back pretty soon anyway."

"I saw your battle with Satoshi on the television!" Joi exclaimed. "That was amazing! You put up a really great fight."

"Heh... thanks," I mumbled, self-consciously running a hand through my hair. "It was pretty cool, wasn't it...?"

Joi laughed. "Simply spectacular. But I've heard you've decided to go into Pokémon researching. Is that right?"

I smiled. "Yup. Guess I just can't deny the old genes, huh?" Joi laughed again.

"Well, good luck! If you want to spend the night here, you're more than welcome to."

"Sure." I picked up my Pokémon and walked toward the Trainers' rooms, where Trainers were allowed to spend a few days resting up, free of charge. As soon as I got to my room, I pulled the window open and leaned against the windowsill. I sighed. I could have probably gotten home that night if I wanted to, but...

_... I didn't feel like going home and facing Satoshi without knowing what had happened..._

Flopping down on the bed, I knew that this was my last night to figure it out. I had nearly all the pieces... all that was left was to find out how they fit together. I sighed and rubbed my face with my hands.

Why did we stop being friends? Why couldn't I remember? Why was I trying to remember _now,_ of all times?

Suddenly, I felt that memory flutter around my mind again, and like always, I started thinking about something else. That was a nice breeze coming in from the window, and the ceiling looked like someone had just painted it, and my hands smelled awful...

_I just about screamed._

"Why does this happen every time? _Why?!"_ I hissed through my teeth, wanting to say the things that I had thought the first time Satoshi and I were lost in the field. To no one in particular, I kept talking.

"It's like I've got amnesia or something! Why the heck can't I remember?! I remember everything that happened ahead of it, and everything that happened after it... heck, I remember what happened about _three minutes_ before it! Why not... _it?!"_ I started shouting, before I realized that this was, after all, a public area where people were liable to hear me ranting. I quickly slammed the window shut. Immediately, I heard a pounding on the wall from the room next to mine. I felt like screaming _"Shut up!"_ at whoever it was, but I held my tongue.

More frustrated than I remembered being in ages, I lay down on the bed and turned the lights off. That memory always seemed to come around just as I was going to sleep...

... maybe it'd show up now.

I took a deep breath, rubbing my face with my hands, trying to calm myself down. "This is it..." I murmured.

"This is the last time. We're not going to turn away this time...

"... I'll remember...

"... Satoshi..."

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.

.

_I'd thought about it for months. I'd known it for longer._

_Satoshi was basically my shadow. And I'd been happy like that._

_But when he started talking about being a Pokémon Master, I realized how much he wanted it. And I started realizing that I was in his way._

_As long as he was behind me, the farthest he would dare to walk was to my side. And if he was at my side, he would never dare to put a foot in front of where I was._

_Somehow, I knew that Satoshi was special. Even though he was so small and puny for someone his age, and all of the others, even the adults, thought that he'd never hold any special promise, I knew better. Satoshi and I were equals, but our strengths lay in different areas._

_I was good at learning and memorizing things. I could read battle strategies from magazines and have them tucked away in my mind forever. I knew all of the element types, and their strengths and weaknesses. Satoshi didn't._

_But he had something that no one else had. He just had a __**way**__ with Pokémon. I could remember the Pidgey, the Rapidash, and so many other Pokémon we had encountered over the years. All of them took it slow and easy with him, and he seemed to tame them and calm them down, no matter how excitable they were..._

_When we played in the field, no Pokémon would ever think of harming us. I never attributed this to myself; instead, I figured that they were all trying to protect him, just like I was. Satoshi was like the runt of a Growlithe litter... the one who needed extra care and attention. But instead, he was staying in my shadow, the one place where he'd never be able to shine._

_And the reason why he was there... was because he didn't know any better. He had grown up like that... from the very first week of his life to then, two weeks before his eighth birthday._

_And it was on that day that I decided to set him free._

_It wasn't easy for me. Through all the years of his questions, his trust, my answers, and my leadership, our friendship had blossomed into something beyond mortal words. It was something that only we shared, and something that no one else could possibly understand..._

_But I had never dreamt that breaking that friendship would hurt us both so much._

_I knew where he would be. It was the end of summer vacation, the year before third grade, and the second to the last year before our Pokémon journeys could begin. Even though I'd be ten in only a little over a year, I knew that Grandpa was counting on sending both Satoshi and me out together. That's how everyone had thought it would happen. But here I was, throwing a wrench right into their oh-so-well designed plans... Anyway, I knew where he'd be._

_It was summer, and in Masara, summer means extremely hot weather. As a result, Satoshi and I had spent every day of our summer vacation meeting under the big shade tree in Grandpa's field. It had been our favorite place to play as kids, and it held so many good memories..._

_But no. I couldn't think about that now._

_After I slowly walked up the steps to Grandpa's lab and walked through the building, stepping into the backyard, I glanced at the wooden fence. By now, I was tall enough to climb over it like it was nothing, but today I just didn't have the strength. Carefully unlatching the gate, I let it swing open, then entered._

_There it was. The lone tree sprouting out of the waving blades of grass. In the hot sun, it shimmered and danced in the waves of heat, but I could still make out the tiny silhouette standing by it._

_Satoshi..._

_He was wearing his favorite set of clothes... blue shorts and a yellow T-shirt, with a bright red stripe dashing down the side. When Hanako had bought them at a discount sale, they had been huge on him, but slowly he was starting to grow into them... Even so, next to the giant tree and in those clothes, he seemed smaller than ever before. But I couldn't let that distract me..._

"_Shigeru!" he called out, recognizing me. Happily, he began to jump through the grass, which still seemed to bury him when he was in it. I noticed he had a piece of paper crunched up in his hand, but I tried to focus._

"_I've been waiting for you, Shigeru!" he said, panting, as he leaned forward to catch his breath. "Mama gave me an invitation to give to you so you can come to my birthday party! I want a Super Nintendo, and I think she'll give it to me, and then we can play with it! Doesn't that sound cool?" But I didn't respond. "Shigeru?" he repeated, looking at me in the face. I was still so much taller, he always had to look up at me..._

_I swallowed, knowing that what I was about to say was the hardest thing I'd ever have to say in my life._

"_Get out of here. Go away."_

"_Huh?" Satoshi tilted his head. I guess he thought that I was playing around. "What do you mean? Is something wrong?"_

"_I don't think you heard me," I said quietly. "Get out of my sight."_

_Satoshi's smile started fading. "Shigeru?"_

"_Didn't you hear me?" I yelled. "Why aren't you listening!"_

"_Shigeru, is something wrong?" Satoshi's eyes were full of puzzlement. He didn't understand why I was doing this..._

"_Yeah, something's wrong... __**you're**__ what's wrong!" I shouted in his face. Satoshi stumbled backward, startled. "Get away from me!" And then, the words that I knew would sting the most..._

"_**I hate you!"**_

_Satoshi's eyes widened in shock and horror. He blinked, and I swore that I saw tears starting to build up... "Shigeru... Shigeru, stop playing... it's not funny...!"_

"_Who said anything about playing!" I yelled. Then, I did the unbelievable; I reached my arms out and shoved him. Pushed him hard, so that he fell down. "I'm not playing!" I shouted, hoping that my own voice wouldn't give away what I was feeling... "I never want to see you again!"_

_Deep in his eyes, I could see Satoshi's mind freezing, not wanting to listen to this. I could almost hear what he was thinking... he was hoping against hope that I was just playing around... trying not to think that I might be serious... "Shigeru..." he whispered._

_Then I said two more words which I knew would hurt even more..._

"_**Shut up!"**__ Satoshi's mouth dropped open in horror. He knew that we weren't supposed to say things like that to each other... "Go away!" I continued. "We're not friends anymore!"_

"_... what...?" I saw the tears start to fall from his eyes._

"_We're not friends!" I was on a roll, and nothing was going to slow me down. "Do you know why? Because __**you're**__ slowing me down! I'll be able to do so much more without you!"_

"_It's not funny, Shigeru! Stop it!" Satoshi finally broke out screaming. That high-pitched wail added itself to his voice, nearly making me collapse. I was so used to wanting to protect him whenever this happened... But I was strong... I kept going...!_

"_Stop what?" I yelled back. "It's true! Admit it! Why do you always copy me? We both know why! You're not as good as me in anything! __**Anything! Including Pokémon!"**_

"_**Stop it!!"**__ Satoshi screeched, tears running down his face, hands clapped over his ears. "Just stop it, Shigeru!"_

"_Why should I stop when it's true?!" I screamed back, tearing Satoshi's hands off his ears. "Don't try to ignore me! I hate you! I hate you, hate you, __**hate you!**__ Go away and don't come back! You're not my friend anymore! And I'll be the better Pokémon trainer! You'll never be as good as me!_

"_So don't even try!"_

_Right before me, Satoshi broke down into a hysterical fit of tears. I nearly flinched as I heard those all-too-familiar sobs. Ever since he was little, Satoshi had had that edge to his crying that no one could ignore. Grandpa had thought it was like a baby Pokémon crying out for the safety of its home and family... Hanako-san had thought it meant her son wasn't quite as strong as the other children, and was begging to be kept safe..._

_... and I had always thought he was crying out and looking for me._

_But now, I had hit his most vulnerable weak spot. It was like using Water against Fire. My opponent had no chance to move._

_Satoshi's weakness was his trust._

_I swallowed, harder this time. Finally, I managed to growl out, "Now shut up... and get out of my sight."_

_And this time, he listened. His tiny hands clenched into fists, he ran away, covered in dirt and tears. For an instant, I was glad that cars didn't exist in Masara, because the way he was running away wildly, he'd have surely gotten hit..._

_As I watched him run, his feet pounding like pistons, and his breath coming in short, ragged gasps, I felt the dam that had taken months to build come apart at the seams..._

_When I knew I was out of his hearing range, I slowly sank to the ground. The sharp grass felt like knives on my skin..._

_... or maybe that was my sadness._

_With no one around, I felt safe in the tall grass. I let everything go. My emotions, my sadness, my regret... I covered my eyes with my hands and felt a strange hotness come up through me, making me tense up and nearly fall over with convulsions._

_As long as I had been Satoshi's protector, the person he looked up to, I had never been able to show weakness to him. I had sworn that he would always have me to guard him, and that no one could break me down..._

_I was foolishly arrogant._

_But to show no weakness around Satoshi... to ignore all of those scrapes, bruises, all of those scary times with the monsters in the closet and under the bed, to protect him when he was afraid of lightning storms or the dark, to keep him safe from anything that could do harm to him..._

_... meant that I had barely cried, or perhaps hadn't at all, in almost nine years._

_I had forgotten, or maybe never known, what it felt like to be so absorbed in tears, to feel my eyes burn and my nose run and my voice wail out in choking screams that didn't seem to belong to me..._

_I made up for it that day._

.

.

.

And as I lay there on the bed in the Tokiwa City Pokémon Center, I realized that this memory had been with me this whole time. I had only been "saving" myself with other thoughts over the past few days, making them up as I need them. I _ had_ remembered. But I had tried not to...

_... because..._

_I just didn't want to face it._

_I had tried to forget it. I didn't want to cry... didn't want to remember..._

_**... didn't want to lose Satoshi all over again...**_


	10. Aftermath, Part I: Alone

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Ten:**

**Aftermath, Part I: Alone**

.

.

.

'_They say that if you truly love someone, then you'll be able to set him free...'_

_I don't remember when I first heard that. Maybe it was before that day... maybe it was after. But I knew it had been the right thing to do._

_When kids turn ten years old, the first thing they do is run out and get a Pokémon license. Then, they have the privilege to leave town and make it on their own, out in the world. It's like a rite of passage, a "coming-of-age" celebration._

_I knew that Satoshi would never be able to make it as long as I was protecting him..._

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.

.

I remembered it taking several long hours for me to calm down enough to get back to normal. I then jumped into the shallow part of the river, getting myself all muddy, so that no one could guess what I had been doing, or see the wet splotches on my clothes from my tears. I got a good berating from Nanami (_"You could've gotten sick! Don't let your guard down just because it's summer..."_) and from Grandpa (_"You could've drowned! You're not a Squirtle, you know..."_)

_But I didn't tell them what I had done..._

But later that evening, just as I was getting ready for bed, I heard Grandpa talking on the phone with Hanako. The lights in the hallway were turned off, but I could hear Grandpa in his office. Tiptoeing to the edge of the door, I sat with my back against the wall and listened...

"_... just came home crying. Did he and Shigeru have a fight?"_

"_Not that I've heard of... I scolded Shigeru a bit for going into the creek, but he never mentioned fighting with Satoshi... Oh, dear... is Satoshi okay?"_

"_I think he's calmed down now, but he's exhausted... he hasn't cried like that in forever."_

"_Did he say why?"_

"_No... and that's the strange part. He just came home crying, then fell asleep. I woke him up a while ago to give him a bath and put him to bed, but he's barely said a word since. He didn't even want dinner... I'm worried..."_

"_Hanako, he's a child. From what you say, I think he and Shigeru did have a little spat... Shigeru's been acting the same way. But don't worry, they'll be fine. Just give Satoshi a good night's rest and he'll be fine tomorrow."_

I gulped. He wouldn't be fine tomorrow. As a matter of fact, _I_ didn't think I'd be fine either. Suddenly, I heard Grandpa hang up. Knowing that he'd be out in the hallway soon, I ran off, suddenly not caring whether or not I was heard...

.

.

.

The next day, I stayed inside instead of going out to play. I was moping around the house, flopped on the couch, when all of a sudden I heard someone knocking at the door. I knew it was Satoshi, because he was the only person we knew who was too short to reach the doorbell.

"Shigeru, go get it!" Nanami shouted from the kitchen. But I didn't move.

"Shigeru?" Walking out of the kitchen and wiping her hands on her apron, Nanami looked at me, slightly confused. "Don't you want to play with Satoshi?"

"No," I muttered abruptly. She sighed.

"Well, go tell him you're not feeling up to it today. You don't want to just leave him hanging there, do you?"

"Yes, I do," I muttered. Without another word, I ran up the stairs and to my room. I kept the door open a crack to listen, though. I heard Nanami sigh, then open the door.

"Is... is Shigeru there?" I heard a tiny voice ask.

"I'm sorry. I don't think he's feeling well today. He jumped in the creek, the little dummy," I heard Nanami respond. "Maybe you should come back tomorrow, Satoshi." There was silence, and then the sound of the door closing.

_Silently, I closed the bedroom door..._

Satoshi came back to my house every day for the next week. And every time he did, I shut myself into my room.

_Then, one day, he just stopped coming..._

It was almost like a strange dream. Life without Satoshi was... well, for one, it was a lot quieter. It was also a lot more boring. But I was still convinced that I was doing some sort of good deed. As for Grandpa and Hanako-san... both were convinced that we'd just had some sort of everyday argument, and that when we met up at school again, we'd be just as good friends as we'd always been. But I knew better.

I was determined not to drag Satoshi down...

At first, school was rough. Again, being in the same grade, we were in the same class, so contact was unavoidable. But Satoshi had long ago realized the present situation.

The other kids started to realize that the position of "Shigeru's best friend" was up for grabs. Pretty soon, I was bombarded with everyone's attention, pleas, begging, snacks, you name it. And Satoshi was left standing off in the corner, all alone...

I couldn't just replace him. So, after several weeks went by, I became a loner. The others began to realize that I wasn't out searching for a new friend, so they left me alone and ate their snacks themselves. For the first time, I was truly alone... But I didn't go back to Satoshi. Why?

Because for the first time, I began seeing a side of him that I had never seen before.

After a while of silence and almost shyness, I watched as Satoshi began to open up, like a flower bud that had been afraid of the sunlight. I watched as he began to approach the other kids and act friendly. Although he, too, never gained a new "best friend," he soon got on everybody's good sides. After all, how could he not, with that personality that I had grown to love? The teachers were, of course, a bit worried about our broken friendship, but both of us seemed to be getting along okay, so they never interfered...

_Eventually, people began to forget how close Satoshi and I had once been. Grandpa, Hanako, and Nanami occasionally asked us if we were okay, and questioned us about what had happened that day, but I never spoke, and to my knowledge, neither did Satoshi._

_Time heals all wounds, and life goes on._

_I never truly forgot that day, but it began to get buried in the back of my mind..._

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.

.

Months passed, and Satoshi was becoming much more outgoing. He would speak up much more than he ever had before, and I began to see something new in him.

A rival. He still wasn't my friend, and was even a little cold to me now... but anytime there was a chance for a competition, he would openly challenge me, head on. But naturally, he didn't stand a chance. However, this only seemed to encourage him more...

Nowadays, I look back and wonder if he was subconsciously trying to reach me in his level of skill... to force me to acknowledge him, which I was no longer doing. I wondered if he thought that, somehow, if he became my equal in all ways possible, I would take him back...

So what did I do? I encouraged him. I taunted him, every step of the way. I went from completely ignoring him to finally speaking, although they were usually words of scorn or ridicule. However, I think he liked that better than nothing...

... so he kept trying. _ And in my heart, that was what I had wanted him to do this whole time._

However, as time passed, the memories of what I was trying to do became blurred, and for me, taunting Satoshi became a game. I was always ahead of him, and we both knew that. But somehow, over time, there started to be a point where I started to feel like my position as the only kid in the school worthy to be a Pokémon Master was being threatened... that I was going to be overtaken by this little runt...!

So I started working harder, too. I went home and studied the books that Grandpa had written, something that I had always loved to do. My knowledge increased, and I became stronger...

But Satoshi did, too (though of course, not by studying). In school, we began to compete at everything: academics, sports, and even Pokémon Lessons. In fact, we began to _dominate_ Pokémon Lessons.

It was the most fun I'd had since that day.

With our friendship gone, our rivalry became the most important thing in my life. No matter what I did, I knew that I had to keep that fire burning.

We were still dependent on each other. Our relationship just wasn't as gentle or kind as it had been before.

.

.

.

_Before I knew it, two years had passed since that day. Pretty soon, it was nearly time for Satoshi's tenth birthday..._

_... which marked the beginning of our Pokémon journeys._

_The night before we were supposed to leave, I can still relive exactly what I was doing. From my room, I had a clear view over the hill and to the forest. And above that forest, a giant, full moon was hovering. Somehow, it was... comforting to me. Listening to a quiet song on a cassette tape, softly playing, I fell asleep._

_The next day, I woke up bright and early. Meeting two other kids outside of Grandpa's lab, we each walked in and chose our starter Pokémon. I knew which Pokémon I wanted... the one that I felt like I could associate with the most._

_Squirtle. When I first called out its name and saw its face, staring up at me, I felt something that I hadn't felt in years. The call to protect someone._

_Saying goodbye to Grandpa, I walked outside and got ready to leave. Nanami had convinced a bunch of her friends to watch me (which I detested) and had gotten one, a girl who had recently lived in Tokiwa, to take everyone along in her car (which I loved, since cars were nonexistant in little Masara)._

_Before I left, though, I happened to see who else but Satoshi, running up the street... in his pajamas. Smirking, I met him at the bottom of the steps. "Better late than never, I suppose," I snickered at him._

"_Shigeru?" He looked at me in surprise, then noticed the Poké Ball in my hand. "Cool! You got a Pokémon!"_

"_Yeah. And it's the __**best**__ one," I grinned. Satoshi's face started to darken in anger. I had just trampled on Satoshi's little dream... and no one listening had understood. In fact, even I began to wonder why I was saying something like that. "Well, smell ya' later," I said, driving off in the fancy red car._

_Thus, my Pokémon journey started. Even so, something still felt missing. I was surrounded by a group of cheerleaders, riding in a __**car**__, and had a new Pokémon of my very own to raise..._

_... but I was alone._

_And by now, I was finding it hard to care._


	11. Aftermath, Part II: Journey

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Eleven:**

**Aftermath, Part II: Journey**

.

.

.

Believe it or not, my Pokémon journey wasn't nearly as exciting as I had thought it might be. True, I loved finding new Pokémon and raising them, but I always had Grandpa's guidelines stuck in the back of my head...

"_Rotate them, so that they'll grow up evenly"... "A balanced team will do the best job"..._

I soon caught dozens and dozens of Pokémon. Training them all evenly turned out to be harder than I thought, though, and I never really forged a strong bond with any of them. But that didn't matter. I knew that I was ahead of Satoshi, and that was reason enough for me to be happy.

In a little over a year, I had collected ten badges, two more than the number required to enter the Seikei Tournament. Even so, I decided to head to Tokiwa on my return trip to see if that gym was open, and who should I run into but Satoshi? By then, I knew about his friends, Kasumi and Takeshi, and how he had barely registered twenty Pokémon. Partly to get a new badge, and partly to spite Satoshi, I entered the Tokiwa Gym...

... and was faced with a monster. The battle was quick and painful, and the monster Pokémon not only went so far as to knock out both my Nidoking and Arcanine together, but me as well. But the most surprising thing to happen that day was when I woke up...

"_Shigeru...?"_

That same little voice... I opened my eyes, and found Satoshi there, holding me, doing his best to support me until I could get up...

_After so long apart, and after so long as rivals... he still cared...?_

Not long after, we both went to the Seikei Tournament... where we both failed. I took a break from gym battles, and started training my Pokémon, perhaps for the next tournament. I received a new Pokémon, Eevee... the first Pokémon since meeting Satoshi again... and just like when I had first gotten Squirtle, I felt like this little Pokémon needed to be raised and protected...

A few months later, Satoshi returned from the Orange Islands, where he'd _won the place of Orange League Champion._ I almost regretted not going there myself, but I remembered how hard I had been training. I challenged him to a battle, to which he immediately agreed... and lost.

Smiling over my victory, and knowing that Satoshi still had room to grow, I soon started off up Route 1 again. I had heard news of a tournament in Jouto, and so I was off. This time, I didn't have Nanami's friends with me, and I didn't taunt Satoshi upon leaving.

While in Jouto, I found myself training more and more at night. Without anyone around, I felt more at peace with myself... more happy. I guess I had gotten used to the isolation, being a loner for so long. As I trained in the darkness, Eevee grew up and evolved into Umbreon. Instantly, I found myself liking it even more than I had before. Its glowing rings against its black fur reminded me so much of the moon that I had stared at the night before my Pokémon journey began...

In the meantime, my other Pokémon grew stronger and more powerful, most of all Blastoise. I marveled at the way that tiny little Squirtle had grown into such a fighter...!

_In a way, it reminded me of Satoshi..._

Before I knew it, the time had come to enter the Jouto Tournament. The prelims were easy enough... I made it through. Then came the shocker. My first round match-up was against... Satoshi. As I looked at him, I saw a fire burning in him, something that I had almost never seen before. Unfortunately, because of that "rest" day, the two of us had more time in each other's presence than was comfortable.

Between us, a wall was building... no, it _had_ been building, for how many _years..._

Needless to say, my experience at the tournament was even more short-lived than Satoshi's. _ But I will never forget his face, only a few seconds after his victory was announced..._

"_Blastoise is unable to battle! Satoshi of Masara Town is the winner!"_

_Even though the crowd's cheering was deafening, I saw Satoshi staring at me, seeing only me, and not hearing anything. And when he moved his mouth to speak, I could hear what he said perfectly..._

"_Shigeru... I beat... Shigeru...?" Almost as if he was questioning this, like it was some sort of dream that just couldn't be real..._

_I smiled. Even though I had lost, it had been an intense, satisfying battle. So I smiled at him..._

_... and the wall between us started to crumble. I walked away... and it wasn't until I was off the battlefield did I finally start to hear him shouting his heart out with his friends._

_I hung around for his next battle, against Hazuki-san. Satoshi's Charizard lost in a battle that rivaled ours. Nodding slowly to myself, knowing that this was not his time yet, I was able to leave the tournament._

_Satoshi had beaten me. And in doing so, I felt like he had liberated me from something, though I wasn't quite sure what yet. And I was free to pursue what I had finally found my passion in; Pokémon research._

_Hazuki offered to take me along on his trip around Mt. Silver before heading home. I accepted..._

_... and that was when I began wondering what had happened between me and Satoshi, so many years before..._

.

.

.

Opening my eyes, I found myself back in the Tokiwa Pokémon Center, at nearly twelve o'clock midnight, with my hands and face soaked with tears. Getting up and walking to the bathroom, I washed off as best I could.

When I flipped the light off and went back to bed, I noticed my Poké Balls, sitting where I had left them on the table. I was suddenly struck with a thought...

Satoshi and I had vastly different Pokémon. Even though the ones he had used in the tournament battle were the biggest and strongest he had, the majority of his creatures were small and not yet evolved. However, they were still so strong in their own ways...

Somehow, they reflected himself. The little one whose powers hid deep within him.

I had heard before that Trainers and their Pokémon come to resemble each other. If Satoshi's Pokémon were like him, then what were mine like...?

I thought about them. I had so many, though... Of course, my main Pokémon would always be Blastoise... some of my others were Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Magmar, Golem, Scizor...

_Armor._ I sat up in wonder.

All of my tournament Pokémon were strong, but that was only half the battle. They also had strong defenses... rock-hard skin, impenetrable shells...

... just like...

_... me..._

The only Pokémon who I regularly battled with, who didn't have a defense like that, was Umbreon. And Umbreon reflected me in the way that it resembled the darkness...

_This was how I had changed..._ no wonder Satoshi acted so differently around me now.

Suddenly, I thought of something else.

_Did Satoshi remember...?_

I understood now why I had begun wondering about the end of our friendship now. Satoshi had proved himself to me. He wasn't that little kid who followed me blindly anymore. He could make it by himself now...

And more importantly, he knew that I wanted to go into Pokémon researching. _And he wasn't following me._

It was safe for me to know now why we weren't friends. And it was also safe for him to know, too...

... I wondered if he remembered that day as vividly as I did.

If he did... and even if he didn't...

... he deserved to know.

He deserved to know why I had acted like that to him. Satoshi definitely wasn't the kind of person to pick up hints, subtle or obvious, and I was positive that he would still be in the dark about why I had suddenly started acting so mean to him...

Not quite over my breakdown, only a few minutes before, I felt the hotness come up through my throat and behind my eyes again. I looked outside through my blurred vision... the moon was high in the sky, and no one would be stirring at this hour...

Unexpectedly, I felt myself hit with a wave of sleepiness. Well, it wouldn't do me any good to get out on the road and promptly fall asleep outside, so I quickly jumped into the bed and fell fast asleep, wiping my eyes on the sheets.

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.

.

_Tomorrow..._

_Satoshi..._


	12. We Meet Again, Satoshi

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Twelve:**

**We Meet Again, Satoshi**

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.

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_I slept deeply that night, feeling almost completely relieved, like a huge stress had been lifted off of me..._

_... almost._

_One last thing remained for me to do..._

_I set off that morning at six a.m., before most of the other Trainers were even awake. Tokiwa was just beginning to wake up at that hour (after traveling so much, I'd realized that it wasn't _that_ big of a town...), and my trip out was peaceful and uneventful..._

_It was time to head home._

.

.

.

It was only a few hours later when I reached Masara. I wondered for a few seconds why it had taken Satoshi an entire day, even with the rain, but the thought was quickly pushed from my mind.

When I saw the woods start to open up, I felt myself running. I briefly remembered Satoshi's Pidgeot that lived in this area, and the day he had set it free... Wasn't that just like him? He finally got a giant, strong Pokémon, and he knew where it truly belonged. A Trainer with a heart of gold, who knew what was best for his friend...

There it was. Satoshi and Hanako's house, nearly on the outskirts of town. Although, considering Masara's size, _everyone_ lived on the outskirts, but that really didn't matter. I slowed down my pace, and deliberately walked up the steps that I had used to jump, two at a time, to save time and perhaps get to play longer with Satoshi. A bit nervously, I knocked on the door...

... and Hanako answered.

"Shigeru!" she smiled. "How nice to see you! Won't you come in?"

I smiled. She was still the same person, warm and friendly. It wasn't surprising to see where Satoshi had gotten his personality. "Sure. Is Satoshi home?" I asked, stepping into the house.

"Oh, he just got back a few days ago. He went out to that field up by your grandfather's lab, if you're looking for him."

_Satoshi had gone back to the field...?_ I was slightly surprised. To Hanako, I nodded. "Thanks. It's nice to see you, Hanako-san!"

"Anytime," she responded, smiling. I said goodbye, then went out through the back door and headed up the hill, making my way to Grandpa's laboratory. Although I knew the trail like the back of my hand and the jaunt was really only a few minutes long, time felt like it was dragging by...

I swallowed hard as I stepped up to the wooden fence. I was almost shocked when I realized how tall I'd gotten. I wouldn't even have to try that hard to make it over anymore... Shaking my head, I unlatched the gate and strolled into the field, the sea of grass looming ahead of me...

_There he was._

And of all things, he was sitting in the shade of the big tree, _our_ tree, with his Pikachu, of course. He heard me coming a ways before I got to him, just like before... "Shigeru?" he called out.

"Hey," I smiled. "Nice to see you."

"Nice to see you, too." However, he and Pikachu didn't move an inch. I wondered if he remembered what had happened the last time he jumped up to meet me here...

"Can I... sit down?" I asked, and he shrugged. Sitting down next to him, in the shade... just like old times. However, that made it all the harder to bring up what I wanted to say. "Um... nice day, huh?"

"Yeah..." We sat there in silence for a few minutes. Then, Satoshi said, "So, what are you going to do now that the tournament's over?"

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe travel around and do some research in this area. Don't really know yet."

"Maybe Ookido Hakase can think of something to do." I blinked, a little thrown off by something he had said... then I figured it out. Satoshi had said "Ookido Hakase," not "Grampa" as he used to. Just another way we had grown apart...

"So, what are you going to do?" I asked. Satoshi sighed, and I caught the sadness in his voice.

"I don't know... Kasumi and Takeshi went back home, so I don't know where else to go..." he trailed off, scratching Pikachu behind the ears. The silence persisted. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer.

"Satoshi... do you remember what happened here, before we left on our Pokémon journeys?" I blurted out. Surprised, Satoshi looked at me, startling Pikachu, who jumped off his lap to stare at me also.

"Wh... what do you mean?"

"Do you remember... when you were almost eight, and... I got... angry at you, and..." I swallowed. "Well... do you remember?"

But all I got was more silence. Satoshi was staring at me, his face blank and unreadable. I sighed.

'_Maybe he doesn't remember... maybe he forgot, like I did...'_ I thought.

But just then, to my astonishment, I heard him speak... "... I... remember..." Satoshi finally whispered. He quickly looked away. Instantly, I felt the wall go up again...

"Pika?" Pikachu looked up at Satoshi, probably wondering what was wrong and what we were talking about.

"Pikachu... let's go..." he said, starting to stand up...

"Satoshi, listen..." I said, touching his arm and stopping him from getting up. "I... never told you why that happened... and... I think you ought to know..."

"It's okay, all right?" Satoshi said, with a hint of fire in his voice. "Just forget about it! That was a long time ago, and I was little, and..." he paused to swallow...

"_And I'm really sorry..."_

Hearing him apologize... _apologize_ for a crime he hadn't even committed... I suddenly felt a blow to my heart. "Satoshi, no, you don't understand..."

"What's there to understand?" he asked me, that fire still burning. "I messed up... and you got mad at me." He trembled a bit, then looked down. "I'm sorry, Shigeru... I guess, I was kind of stubborn then... I didn't think that it would turn into... what it did..."

I stared at him, though his eyes didn't look into mine the way they used to. To see him like that... to hear him, so regretful over something that wasn't his fault... Even though his voice now carried so much confidence and courage, I could still hear, somewhere, the little boy who was still pleading so much for my acceptance...

_... he wasn't ready. Not quite._

I don't know exactly what I was waiting for, but I knew that I was waiting for _something._ I knew that I didn't want him to follow me. I didn't want him to feel that he was always below me. I wanted him to see me as his _equal..._ maybe, even, for him to realize that he had excelled at something beyond me...

In a way, I wanted him to forget me. I wanted him to go through life without having to think of me at all. Perhaps it was still too soon after the Jouto competition. Maybe, after I had been through some of my research and he had continued on as a Trainer, we'd be far apart enough to be closer together... as close as I knew both of us wanted to be...

'_Satoshi...'_

_But for now, perhaps maintaining the peace was what we both needed the most..._

I looked at him again... and smiled. "Hey. What's done is done," I said. "And I don't think you were the only stubborn one back then..." I reassured him. Satoshi glanced at me, a look of surprise on his face.

_In that second, I felt a spark of understanding pass between us._ It was... an incredible feeling... as if, for the first time in years, the rift between us was starting to close...

We sat in silence for the next few moments. But just then, I heard a loud growling noise, one that I remembered quite well. I grinned at Satoshi, who smiled sheepishly.

"I guess it's lunchtime..." We both were quiet for a few seconds, then _laughed._ The wall broke down.

"Do you... want to come to my house for lunch?" Satoshi asked, standing up.

I was briefly in shock. It had been such a long time since I'd heard those words... "... sure," I said. Satoshi smiled, then laughed and helped me up. It was then that I noticed how much taller he was getting... how much stronger he looked, and he definitely didn't look like he needed protecting anymore...

And I was taller, too, and I was sure that I also had gotten stronger over the course of exploring so much...

We had both changed... but when Satoshi laughed, I could see how things were still the same. It was a feeling that was extremely hard to describe, but I didn't care. I loved it.

The wall between us was breaking _for good_. And I knew that our friendship had never really ended. We had just gained a rivalry, all those years before.

And that had been good, seeing as how things had ended up turning out.

I ended up eating lunch at Satoshi's house, much to Grandpa and Hanako's delight. Even though it had taken somewhere around six years, almost as long as we had once been friends, our bitterness toward each other was ending. I could see how happy it made the adults...

... and how much happier I felt, too.

Satoshi and I spent the rest of the day walking around Masara, mostly in silence, sometimes commenting on things that we noticed had changed. Later that afternoon, we split up to go home, but we both left with good feelings toward each other...

When I returned home, Grandpa asked to talk to me...

.

.

.

That evening, I found myself in my room, trying to sleep... but I couldn't. Then I remembered that I hadn't fulfilled my vow to tell Satoshi the truth about what had happened...

Maybe... that was for the better, I decided. Just as I had thought, earlier that day, that even though it was so blatantly obvious that he had grown up on the outside, I could tell that inside, he was still the same naïve little boy...

... who I loved so much.

All that mattered was that he was succeeding at what he wanted to do.

I didn't care anymore. Satoshi was happy. And if Satoshi was happy, I was happy.

Not feeling tired, I glanced around my room, remembering the Mt. Silver Pokémon Center and how it had reminded me of here. As my eyes wandered, they settled on a tape player that I'd owned when I was little. Being the grandson of Ookido Hakase, I'd had plenty of luxuries that the other Masara kids could only dream of having. And of course, I'd always shared them with Satoshi... only Satoshi...

I noticed a cassette tape inside the player. Turning the lamp on, I hopped out of bed to see what it was...

When I read the title, I smiled. It had been a favorite of mine, a long time ago...

I looked around. There was some paper sitting on the table.

'_Satoshi deserves to know... someday.'_

I smiled. Plugging the tape player into the wall, I turned the volume down. I picked up a pencil and a sheet of paper and started writing the night away...

.

.

.

Although I'm not sure exactly what happened, I think Nanami found the note the next morning when she came in to check on me. By then, I was long gone to go finish my plans with Grandpa, so I'm not sure what she did...

... but I know what happened because of it.


	13. Shigeru's Letter

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**A Letter.**

.

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"Shigeru?" Ookido Nanami called as she entered her little brother's room, holding a duster. "Shigeru? Are you up yet?" Noticing his pajamas strewn across the floor, Nanami sighed and picked them up. "Guess so..."

Just then, she noticed something a bit out of place. The tape player, which had always been sitting on the floor, collecting dust, was now on Shigeru's table, plugged in, with a tape inside. Nanami picked up the tape player, reading the title of the song. She smiled, remembering that song and the two little boys who had used to sing it relentlessly, every day...

When she set the tape player back down, her hand bumped across a sheet of paper, labeled "For Satoshi." Nanami raised an eyebrow, since Shigeru was hardly the kind of person to write letters. Her curiosity got the best of her, and she picked it up.

As she began to read, she smiled. Her hand reached for the tape player, turning it on...

.

.

.

_Even though I'd never written letters that often, I felt like this was the best way for me to let Satoshi know without too many words getting in the way. With the song, "For My Best Friend," playing in the background, I slowly let Satoshi know the truth about what had happened..._

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_Satoshi,_

_I don't know when you'll be reading what I'm about to write, but right now, I want you to know that I'm sorry about what I had to do to you, the summer before third grade._

_Do you remember? That was the day that I yelled at you, and pushed you, and told you that you'd never be as good as me at anything. I'm sorry to have to make you remember, but please try to understand..._

_As stupid as it sounds, I was trying to do a good thing. You see, when we were little, you copied nearly everything I did, and I liked that a lot. It made me feel important. But after a while, I realized that you could do so much more, and by letting you follow me, I was holding you back._

_Remember how you wanted to be the best Pokémon Master in the world? Well, I realized how much you wanted to do that, and I also saw that if you copied me all the time, you'd never be able to be the best. I didn't want that for you. True, I wanted to be a Pokémon Master myself, but I didn't think it was fair to keep you behind me the whole way..._

_So I pretended to be mad at you, so that we'd stop being friends. What I didn't count on was how much both of us would be hurt by that. Since I hated to remember that day, I sort of forgot about it, until I was coming back from the tournament. I realized how much I must have hurt you, and I wanted to apologize for that._

_I've never hated you. I want you to forget what I said to you, because none of it was true. And the part about you never being as good as me in anything? Well, it's pretty obvious that isn't true, either._

_I'm starting to run out of words and paper, so I want you to know that I'm sorry, for everything. I don't hate you, never have, never will, and I'll always think of you as my best friend._

_However... I also want you to know that I'm very happy with what happened because of that day. You've done a great job raising your Pokémon, and I'm really impressed... If there was a bright side to any of this, I think you've gotten a lot better than you used to be..._

_I want you to go out there and become a Pokémon Master. I know you've got what it takes. Grandpa tells me that there's another tournament in Houen, where Hazuki lives, and I want you to shoot for that. Do it for me._

_I hope that, after all this, you can forgive me for hurting you so badly. If you can't understand this now, that's okay... someday, I'm sure you will._

_From, Shigeru_


	14. Goodbye Again

**Golden Rivals, Silver Friends**

**Chapter Fourteen:**

**Goodbye Again**

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"_Red cheeks, a yellow shirt_

"_The zigzag marks of my best friend_

"_We scribbled on a white page_

"_We sang the brand-new songs_

"_I'll never forget the episodes with you_

"_Two arms full of 'thank you's"_

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.

.

I sat back and looked over the paper. To me, it sounded pretty bad, but that was really the best I could do...

Leaning back, I sighed. There was no way I'd ever be able to say this stuff out loud to him, and even if I did, he'd probably just stare at me with that blank expression again. This way, I could just give it to him, and let him start to understand it himself, in the way that seemed so different from everyone else's...

The sky was becoming dark as I looked out the window. I should have fallen asleep a long time ago, seeing as how I'd really only gotten about five hours of sleep the night before, but I didn't care.

From my room, I could see the field grass waving in the breeze. I smiled...

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"_Look at the twilight sky, dyed with sunset_

"_Sparkling, warm stars are laughing_

"_The new winds are calling_

"_I want to walk with you_

.

.

.

After returning home from Jouto, Grandpa had talked to me in his lab. He told me about how some people down south, on Saida Island, were going to try cloning extinct Pokémon from fossils. The whole idea sounded a little farfetched to me, but if Grandpa was going along with it...

No matter what the idea was, Grandpa said that it would be a good experience for me. I was planning to go into studying Pokémon evolution, and Grandpa said that this whole cloning business would be a good time to study Pokémon DNA. Unfortunately, I'd have to leave very soon to catch the boat. I agreed to go along with the idea, and I immediately started packing what I knew I'd need...

However, even though I knew this was the chance of a lifetime, I still felt kind of bad. _Satoshi and I had just made up. Why did I have to leave now?_

I glanced back down at my letter. Maybe... maybe I would leave it at his house, just before I left... or I could carry it with me, in case I happened to run into him...

But I knew what I really wanted. I wanted to try and go back to how things had been before, even though I knew that was impossible. That day had changed our futures permanently, and nothing I did could take us back to that...

.

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"_Barefooted in seas of grass_

"_We played, danced, and even tripped_

"_Arranging the shining badges together_

"_We slept with connected hearts_

"_I'll never forget the episodes with you_

"_Those countless treasures_

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.

.

I briefly thought about what my life would be like if I _hadn't_ broken our friendship. Would we still be the same?

... no. That much was certain. If we had stayed friends this whole time, Satoshi and I would have been traveling together, certainly, and he'd never have become friends with Kasumi and Takeshi, and his training style would certainly be different...

He'd have stayed a shadow of me.

The world wouldn't know Satoshi. They'd only know him as "Shigeru's friend," just like how things used to be...

I'd known that he deserved better.

And letting him go was the only way to do it.

In the same way that Satoshi had released his Pidgeot so that it could follow its calling, I had released Satoshi. I'd known that there was something beyond what I could provide for him, something that only he could see.

I'd known that he was special...

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"_Let's fly up somewhere_

"_Passing the shining stars_

"_When the brand-new morning opens its eyes_

"_Let's go off to that place_

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.

The next morning, I woke up early. Leaving the note on the table and planning to come back to it later, I went down to ask Grandpa the details about my trip. Grandpa explained that I'd have to catch a boat from the port in Ikuchiba, and with that handed me the boat pass.

Grandpa smiled at me. "You'll probably be able to catch a bus in Tokiwa to get there." I nodded. "Do your best, Shigeru."

Then, I was hit with an idea. I set my backpack down and opened it up. Grandpa watched me, a little confused, until I explained.

"I think I'm just going to take Blastoise with me this time..." I was starting over again, with the Pokémon that I had begun with. I think Grandpa understood, because he simply nodded and accepted my other five Pokémon.

"Maybe I'll call you and ask for some of the others when I get there..." I said. "But... I think keeping it simple for now is best..."

Grandpa smiled. "Whatever you say. If you need help, don't forget to call."

I walked back home and went into my room, wanting to pick up the letter and drop it off at Satoshi's house. But when I glanced at the table, I saw that it was gone...! I searched over my room for a bit, but I couldn't find the darn thing.

Sighing, I knew I had to get to Tokiwa soon. Maybe on the bus ride I could write another letter, maybe a better one, too.

After saying goodbye to Nanami and Grandpa, I found myself walking up the hill toward Route 1. But suddenly, I heard someone running after me, calling my name...

"_Shigeru! Shigeru...!"_

... and I didn't have to look to know who it was.

"Satoshi?" I called, turning around. Sure enough, there he was, breathlessly running after me. For a brief instant, I was reminded of that day, so long ago... in fact, he even had something clenched in his hand again.

In a matter of seconds, he had caught up to me, leaning forward to catch his breath. He looked up at me and smiled, but there was something peculiar about his expression... His eyes suddenly lit up, and he unclenched his fist, pulling apart whatever he was holding. I suddenly realized what it was...

"Shigeru... here," he whispered, still a little out of breath, handing me half of... the Poké Ball. _Our_ Poké Ball. And he was giving me the half that _he'd_ carried around for the past four years...

"Satoshi, I don't..." I started. But he stopped me.

"I want you to have it," he said, smiling. "And...

"_I'm glad things turned out the way they did, too..."_

Immediately, I was floored._ 'What? He didn't... he _couldn't_ have...'_ I suddenly had an idea of where my letter had gotten to...

"Satoshi, listen," I said, swallowing. "I... I would've told you all that before, but..." _How could I say what I wanted to? That I thought he wasn't ready? But now..._

"But what?" he asked, looking up at me. _And I realized that he _was_ ready. All this time, I had still been treating him like that same little kid... I suppose, old habits die hard..._

I shook my head. "Nothing. It's nothing." But Satoshi tilted his head and folded his arms, knowing better. However, he didn't push it...

For a few seconds, the two of us stood there in silence, not really sure what to say to each other, after all of these years. Finally, I spoke up.

"Satoshi... you read the letter. And, I guess you know what I did... and why I did it..." I smiled apologetically. "I'm really sorry, Satoshi. I... never would have thought that it would hurt like that..."

Satoshi responded, "It's not so much what you did... that day, I mean. It was more what happened afterwards..." He swallowed. "It was like... you didn't remember how we'd been friends at all. Like you were trying to make me forget everything...

"... and I did, sort of."

Letting out a long sigh, I had to look away from him. "I know. And so did I. I didn't want to remember anything... especially what I had lost," I added. "Satoshi... I'm so sorry... I never wanted you to get hurt. I just wanted you to be able to get out of my shadow..."

"But on the bright side," Satoshi pointed out, "... things turned out the way they did. And we're... okay now, right?"

"Yeah... yeah," I nodded. "We are."

"So... friends?" Satoshi asked, holding out his hand in a friendly handshake. _And how else could I respond?_

"Forever," I conceded, taking hold of his hand.

As he let go, Satoshi smiled at me again, the same smile that I had come to love so much, the smile that I had missed for so long. "Thanks, Shigeru. Maybe we'll meet up again sometime," he said, starting to walk away. "Goodbye!" he called out before he started running.

I watched him run. And this time, it wasn't to escape a day of hurt.

For an instant, I wanted to follow him. I wanted to go back home with him, to be with him again, to be friends, to follow him on his Pokémon journey, to forget about everything and go back to the way things had been, the way they would have been if I hadn't...

... but no. I had my journey, he had his. And it was just as he had said... maybe we'd meet up again someday.

I smiled as I watched his retreating figure. "We'll meet again...

"... I'll make sure of it.

"_... goodbye, Satoshi..."_

With that, I walked off toward my next destination.

A new chapter in my life was about to start.

And this time, it had a happy beginning.

.

.

.

"_Look at the twilight sky, dyed with sunset_

"_Sparkling, warm stars are laughing_

"_The new winds are calling_

"_I want to walk with you_

"_On the road that continues forever..._

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.

Satoshi...

When I reached Ikuchiba, I called Grandpa... and found out that you had gone off to Houen, taking only Pikachu with you. I raised an eyebrow, a little irked at your obvious copying... before I decided to let it go. I guess old habits _do_ die hard, good or bad...

I knew that this adventure was going to be much different than my other ones. For one, I was following a dream that I knew was truly mine.

Second, I had your friendship with me. And that was genuinely what mattered.

Even though I'm now out over the ocean, miles away from you, it feels like I'm closer to you than I have been in ages.

I'm glad that you understand what I had to do now. Actually, I'm glad that I can remember, too. Maybe sometimes, we do have to suffer a little bit to make our lives better. Just think... if I hadn't done that, if I hadn't yelled at you and stopped protecting you... Where would we both be now?

It's like what Hazuki said. Even though we're going our separate ways, we'll always be rivals. I think we always were, even though we didn't realize it, the same way that we've always been friends. But being rivals, we've both forced each other to keep growing...

Someday, you'll come back from Houen, and I'll come back from... wherever I'm going.

And when I get back, I'd like to have a Pokémon battle with you. After all, we're still rivals, right?

.

.

.

_I'm sorry that I had to leave so soon after finding you again. But just remember..._

_... I'm your friend._

_I'll always be there for you._

_I'm glad things turned out the way they did... because I got to know the real you._

_I remember that little boy, who followed me everywhere like a second shadow, who copied everything I did and couldn't remember a single battle strategy. Now, I can think of you, and visualize that little boy grown up, whose heart and soul shine like the sun, who doesn't have to listen to anyone but himself..._

_... the Satoshi who, I know, will one day become a Pokémon Master._

The best there ever has been.

And no one will ever forget it.

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.

_Fin_


End file.
